back to article Going up: Fancy a virtual flight to 30km above the PLANET?

Those of you who've always fancied a trip to 30km above the Earth's surface, but have neither the money nor a pair of cojones the size of a plucky Playmonaut's, are directed to this interesting KickStarter campaign in support of a "Virtual Ride to Space". Dr Aaron Knoll - a "lecturer in the field of plasma propulsion" at …

  1. Shady
    Joke

    Or

    For much less money, visit Skegness Pier and have a go on the thirty year old Simulator Ride!

    1. Lester Haines (Written by Reg staff) Gold badge

      Re: Or

      In my case, that would involve a flight to Britain and a train to Skegness. I can walk from the station to the pier, though, so I've saved a taxi fare.

      1. Rich 11

        Re: Or

        I know it's only a couple of hundred yards, but the taxi fare would be a small price to pay to avoid getting mugged by seagulls down Chip Alley.

        1. Lester Haines (Written by Reg staff) Gold badge

          Re: Re: Or

          Understood. I'll factor in the taxi fare then and report back on how much I've saved over backing this on Kickstarter from the comfort of my PC.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Let Facebook pay for it

    The way I look at it, why should crowd-sourcing pay the R&D costs for Oculus Rift content?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Let Facebook pay for it

      It's not 'Oculus' content, any more than PC games are Samsung or Dell content.

      It's a case of building support for VR (stereoscopic viewports and head tracking) into your engine. It's already in Unity, Unreal and Source among others.

  3. Alister
    Joke

    As of this morning, 166 backers had pledged £2,000 towards the £5,000 target.

    So 166 x 2,000 = £332,000

    made the target then, or am I reading this wrong??

  4. Alister
    Coat

    Taken from his Bio:

    Aaron's research interests involve experimental and computational plasma physics

    Does that make him a Gassy Knoll?

    Yes, I'm here all week...

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Skeggie???

    Why on earth would anyone voluntarily go to Skeggie? My Gran lived all her life less than 10 miles from the place yet she'd never go. She'd rather go to Boston or Lincoln. I was on holiday with her and said, 'can we go to Skegness?' The look I received said everything I needed to know.

    Years later I asked my mother why gran had such a hatred of the place.

    She smiled and said, 'That was where she caught her husband who was supposed to be on his way to the Med to fight Rommel knocking off her next door neighbor.

    I went once. The cold wind whipped off a grey North Sea so I left in a hurry. A few miles inland it was a really nice day. Never been back.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Skeggie???

      "Why on earth would anyone voluntarily go to Skeggie? "

      Pandas Palace...As a 5 year old there was nothing better than a day out at pandas palace scooting around on the carts and bashing my younger brother over the head with foam batons.

      1. Shady
        Thumb Up

        Re: Skeggie???

        Panda's Palace! Those hand-powered carts were fantastic! Plus, the big arcades opposite the Embassy introduced me to Nemesis, Starbike, Jackal, Double Dragon, Toobin', 720 etc. And no-one, and I do mean no-one, could knock off my high scores on Mappy. Pity they're just full of gambling machines and the odd big cabinet now.

  6. dotdavid

    I like this.

    If it works it would also be good if they used the GoPro cameras and associated software they've already bought/written to set up a few other potential "immersive" kickstarter projects which would now presumably be cheaper.

  7. Stevie

    Bah!

    30 kilometers?

    When I've already been to the galactic core *and* the galactic rim on various iterations of the USS Enterprise (and survived the various psychic horrors and non-material alien infestations normal for such ill-thought-out expeditions)?

    Thrrrrp! sir, Thirrrrp!

  8. Jan 0 Silver badge

    I fancy the virtual flight, but I'd like to experience it immersively.

    The Oculus Rift is so pixellated it just reminds me of my 1980's experience of VR. It's good enough to make you feel insecure, but it's still low resolution video and underwhelming. Please lift your sights Oculus Rift. (I tried the latest Oculus Rift last month. I know that they're about to improve the resolution, but it's embarassingly low now.)

    1. Sir Runcible Spoon

      Re: I fancy the virtual flight, but I'd like to experience it immersively.

      So what kind of resolution would please you? I certainly don't remember the VR screens in the 80's being as high rez as they are now.

      1. Jan 0 Silver badge
        Boffin

        Re: I fancy the virtual flight, but I'd like to experience it immersively.

        @Sir Runcible Spoon: I'd the display to cover my entire visual field and I don't want to be able to detect any pixellation. I think I'd be satisfied with around 36 kpixels x 36 kpixels*, per eye. Then I wouldn't be reminded of the even more pixellated view through 1980's VR headsets. Oculus Rift is better than the 1980's, but it shouldn't show jaggies on curved lines and edges!

        * that would at least allow a reasonable 0.3 arc minutes per pixel in the centre. That might be difficult with a TFT device. Maybe I need an implanted individually steerable nano laser array, embedded or in contact with each eye so that any rod or cone can be directly stimulated?

  9. C. P. Cosgrove

    I must be missing something.

    Google Earth any one ?

    Chris Cosgrove

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